According to liberal New York Times columnist Charles Blow, "Rick Santorum scares the bejesus out of people"
and could never be elected President. The journalist appeared on MSNBC,
Tuesday, to dismiss the idea that the Republican could appeal to
independents, should he get the nomination.

Blow, who just last week made an ugly, anti-Mormon remark
about Mitt Romney, did his best to portray Santorum as unable to
broaden his appeal: "You cannot pivot from 'college is where Satan is
having his biggest impact' and pivot that into an economic issue. That's
just a fallacy. That's not going to happen." [See MP3 audio here.]

Asked by Jansing and Co. Anchor Chris Jansing if people were
starting to think the former Pennsylvania governor could win, Blow
derided, "No. Maybe they think it, but no one else thinks it. Rick
Santorum scares the bejesus out of people."

Of course, despite the over-the-top rhetoric by people like Blow,
Santorum only trails Barack Obama by three points, according to the
latest Rasmussen tracking poll.

On February 23, Blow mocked the Mormon Romney for a comment the
Republican made about children being born out of wedlock. Blow spewed,
"Let me just tell you this Mitt 'Muddle Mouth': I'm a single parent and
my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear." The Times
columnist later apologized and deleted the tweet.

On Friday we took note of a pair of tweets, one bigoted and one
hateful, by New York Times columnist Charles Blow.

The first
gratuitously mocked Mitt Romney for being Mormon; the second described
Blow's Twitter detractors as "lice."

Blow apologized for the anti-Mormon tweet but not for the "lice" one,
which in our opinion was worse because it was downright dehumanizing.
Likening one's foes to vermin has been a rhetorical trope of some of the
worst regimes in history.

A partial transcript of the February 28 segment, which aired at 10:05am EST, follows:

CHRIS JANSING: To my point on the establishment, Charles, are they thinking, maybe Rick Santorum can win?

CHARLES BLOW: No. Maybe they think it, but no one else thinks it. Rick Santorum scares the bejesus out of people.

S.E. CUPP: Clearly people think it. His poll numbers are up, Charles.

BLOW: No, no. People in the Republican Party may think that, but-

S.E. CUPP: Well, right. Democrats wouldn't.

BLOW: Excuse me, Christine O'Donnell won the Republican primary. That
doesn't mean she can win the general. What the Republican establishment
wants is to win the general election. And Rick Santorum is making
himself completely unelectable by continuing to not be the son of a coal
miner, which is actually a good message to run on and to be a family
man and to be a man of faith. But to be, you know, craziness.

JANSING: But do you wonder where this would be right now if he had
done that? Where would we be if he stuck with that economic mantra?

CUPP: Obviously, the past few weeks and the news cycle has helped Rick
Santorum. He's doing well in the polls. He's challenging in Michigan.
He won Colorado. When I was at CPAC, I would younger voters who they
liked. It was Rick Santorum and most of them said it was because of the
three-fer election night in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota. All of a
sudden, he seemed electable where didn't before. Now, where you are
right, Charles is that he has to pivot. He cannot depend on this news
cycle for the rest of the election season. He has to make the argument
that the social issue, these moral issues are also economic issues. He
can do that. I have seen him do it on the stump. He needs to do it on
the national stage.

BLOW: You cannot pivot from college is where Satan is having
his biggest impact and pivot that into an economic issue. That's just a
fallacy. That's not going to happen.
CUPP: Sure you can. Of course you can.

BLOW: Of course you can.
..
BLOW: He's been on this hobby horse [contraception] for a very long
time. It has nothing to do with that. If you look back at his record,
the speeches he has given, this is part of who Rick Santorum is. And it
is always going to surface. I has nothing to do with what happens in the
news. He wants this. He has always wanted to fight on this ground and
that's what he's doing. And that is going to hurt him.

CUPP: Clearly, he's a conservative. He's always been one and he's
never hid that from view. He's always been a social conservative. And
anyone who has any knowledge of Rick Santorum before this election knew
him has a social conservative if nothing else. But that was an economic
issue that he was talking about.

- Scott Whitlock is the senior news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.

Federal employees and military personnel can donate to the Media Research Center through the Combined Federal Campaign or CFC. To donate to the MRC, use CFC #12489. Visit the CFC website for more information about giving opportunities in your workplace.